Shakespeare was a " curious " gardener, in that he
was interested in new plants. He speaks of the crown imperial, which at that date
was rare. He writes also of " roses damasked white and red," by which he can only mean the Rosa Mundi, which (although some authorities assert that it came here with the Crusaders) is not men- tioned in Gerard's Herbal of 1596. It is probable that Gerard and Shakespeare were close friends, and that when Shakespeare was living in Mr. Mountjoy's house in Monkswell Street he would often visit the neighbouring garden of the great herbalit in Fetter Lane. Ir. Gerard's garden he would have seen the first crocus; the first sunflower and almost the first potato to be grown in England. He would have seen what Gerard calls the " blue pipe privet," which was the earliest lilac to flower in our island. He would have seen the Turkish lily, or martagon, which Gerard collected and propa- gated. It was there assuredly that he saw his crown imperial and the lady tulip,' which was then being imported from the downs o Thrace. It was there that he saw the several varieties of the whit lose, from which, according to Pliny, Albion may derive her name. It was there, in Fetter Lane, that Gerard cultivated the old cabbage rose, which, although mentioned by Herodotus, had almost becom extinct. And it was there, in my fancy, that Shakespeare saw the " deep vermilion " of the Rosa Gallica. It was there also that he met, we may well believe, Gerard's great friend Nicholas Leete, who was also a " curious " gardener, and in fact employed an agent or " servant " to send him plants from Anatolia and the Near East. This agent had his headquarters at Aleppo, and it is tempting to
suggest that Shakespeare first heard that metrical name while walk ing in the garden of Fetter Lane with Leete and Gerard and in a flash of genius placed it in the tremendous closing scene of Othello.
How close is the link which these familiar flowers forge between Shakespeare and ourselves! Most of the Elizabethan flowers arc stil the foundations of our gardens today. One of the few which calm° be identified with any certainty is the " chevisaunce " which Spense introduced into the happy jingle: " The pretty Pawnce And the Chevisaunce.”
Spenser was an artificial poet and was more interested in words tha in botany. But Shakespeare's flowers actually grew in soil. 1-10 much he would have loved the flowering shrubs of Golders Green. He would have felt himself transported to the gardens of Cathay
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